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Clerk of court launches Web site
By CARY DAVIS
© St. Petersburg Times, What's not available on the Internet these days? Think about it. Everyone, it seems, has a Web site. Airlines, bookstores, news organizations, banks, government. You can pay your bills online, order groceries, download Lee Greenwood's Proud to be an American, find Emeril Lagasse's recipe for shrimp gumbo and read the agenda for the next County Commission meeting. But one thing you haven't been able to find on the Internet: a Web site for the Pasco County Clerk of Court. That will begin to change this week. On Monday, the clerk's office launches www.pascoclerk.com. But unless you're willing to pay $40 every month, don't expect to get much information from the site. For now, the public will be able to see only an index of official records: deeds, mortgages, liens, and other documents that are required by law to be filed with the clerk of court. Images of the actual documents -- at least those recorded from 1985 to the present -- will be available only to subscribers who pay the $40 monthly access fee. But here's a tip: Property Appraiser Mike Wells said he will start this week putting scanned images of recorded deeds on his Web site, which provides information at no charge. "The information belongs to the public, and it's my position that they should have access to it," Wells said. Subscribers to the clerk's office Web site also will have immediate access to a new civil case management database. And beginning Jan. 1, subscribers also will be able to download files containing traffic citation and tenant eviction data. Also on Jan. 1, subscribers will be able to access the Criminal Justice Information System, a database that has been in place since the 1980s, from the Web site. History suggests the market for subscribers to the clerk's office Web site is small. The hard-to-master, computer dial-up system that has been in place for years has about 380 subscribers, mostly law firms and title companies. The St. Petersburg Times is a subscriber. The soon-to-be obsolete system is character-based, meaning it cannot display scanned images of public records. Sally Morris, owner of Executive Title Services of Florida in New Port Richey, said the new Web site will change the way she does business. In the past, she paid a researcher to go to the courthouse and make copies of official records. "It's going to make us a lot more efficient," Morris said. "Our turnaround time used to be a week. Now it's going to be the next day. "It's going to be unbelievable. I'm so excited." Most other Pasco government agencies already have Web sites, all of which provide information for free. Some sites are better than others. Wells' site, for example, includes aerial maps, property records and appraised values for every parcel in the county. Supervisor of Elections Kurt Browning's site includes candidate contribution reports and a running count of the number of registered Democrats and Republicans in Pasco. Which raises the question: Why is Clerk of the Circuit Court Jed Pittman charging for access to information on his Web site? "It's a matter of recovering costs," said David Rounds, Pittman's top computer specialist. "The people who are using the service are the ones paying for it." Rounds explained that the clerk's office must rely heavily on fees -- court costs, traffic fines, revenue from making copies of public records -- to support the agency's budget. Other government agencies -- Wells' office, for example -- are funded largely by tax revenue. For several years Pittman has said he was reluctant to put records online because it would allow people to make copies for free. The designers of the new Web site have figured out a way to close that loophole, so that $1 will be deducted from a subscriber's escrow account for every copy made of an official record. Subscribers are required to keep at least $125 in an escrow account at all times. Court clerks around Florida have varying ideas about what to make available online. Some court clerks don't yet have a Web site. Others, like the clerk's offices in Pinellas and Hillsborough, take the same approach as Pittman, providing useful records on their Web sites only to paying subscribers. And several clerk's offices in Florida -- Manatee and Marion, for example -- have Web sites that charge nothing for images of official records and access to a court database. The Pasco clerk's office Web site will get better with time, Rounds said. For example, the clerk's office is in the process of switching to a more user-friendly database for criminal court records. Within three years, that database will be available on the Web site, Rounds said. What's more, the clerk's office soon will begin scanning the contents of court files -- pleadings, orders, transcripts of depositions, hearings and trials -- and images of those documents also will be available someday on the Web site, Rounds said. "It's a work in progress," Rounds said. As for upgrades to what the public can get for free, Rounds said there are no plans as yet to make more information available in the future. - Cary Davis covers courts in west Pasco County. He can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6236 or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6236. His e-mail address is cbdavis@sptimes.com. To subscribeFor information about subscribing to the clerk's office Web site, call (727) 847-8231 in New Port Richey or (352) 521-4534 in Dade City. Government Web sitesGovernment Web sites in Pasco include: Pasco County Commission: www.pascocounty.com Pasco County Sheriff's Office: www.pascocounty.com/sheriff/ Pasco Supervisor of Elections: www.pascovotes.com. (Offers best links to other Pasco government Web sites). Pasco Property Appraisers Office: www.appraiser.pascogov.com Pasco Tax Collector's Office: www.taxcollector.pascogov.com Pasco Superintendent of Schools: www.pasco.k12.fl.us New Port Richey: www.cityofnewportrichey.org Zephyrhills: www.zephyrhills.net Dade City: www.dadecity.com
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